Blaže Ristovski (Macedonian:Блаже Ристовски; March 21, 1931 – November 28, 2018) was aMacedonianlinguist,folklorist andcultural historian.
Ristovski was born on March 21, 1931, in Garnikovo,Kingdom of Yugoslavia. After completing his elementary education in his native village, he studied at a gymnasium inKavadarci. He graduated from Faculty of Philology inSkopje in 1965 with a PhD in Philology with a dissertation aboutKrste Misirkov.[1] He was the director of the Institute of Folklore "Marko Cepenkov" in Skopje and a member of theMacedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts[2] and honorary member of the Writers' Association of Macedonia. Ristovski was a specialist in the manifestations ofMacedonian nationalism from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He wrote a biography about Misirkov. In the 6th World Congress of Slavic Studies in the 1960s, during arguments between Bulgarian and Macedonian scholars, he claimed that theSocialist Republic of Macedonia would achieve its ideal ofunifying Macedonia, simultaneously annexing its "two other parts" (Aegean andPirin Macedonia). Bulgarian linguist Vladimir Georgiev responded that Ristovski's presentation was "not for Congress." The organizers of the Congress demanded apologies from the Bulgarian representatives, who in turn expected a prior apology from their Macedonian colleagues, especially from Ristovski. After hesitating, he was obliged to apologize, but the academics departed from the congress more as opponents than as colleagues.[3] In the 1990s, he was a deputy prime minister inNikola Kljusev's government.[4] Ristovski served as the editor of theMacedonian Encyclopedia, which was published in September 2009 by theMacedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, which claimed thatAlbanians had settled in Macedonia in the 16th century and referred to them asŠiptari and "highlanders", receiving condemnations by Albanian politicians and intellectuals from the country, Albania, and Kosovo. He had resisted pressure to resign, but was subsequently discharged from his position.[5][6] He died in Skopje on November 28, 2018, at the age of 87.[7]
Croatian historian Stjepan Antoljak gave Macedonian academics the idea to claim the Bulgarian rulerSamuel as a Macedonian ruler in the 1950s. Ristovski supported Antoljak and stressed that already in the ninth century there was no "ethnogenetic, cultural, linguistic, and civilizational unity" between Macedonians and Bulgarians. Ristovski insisted thatBulgarians were a mixture ofTatars andSlavs. He also claimed that the term "Bulgarian" in the 19th century was not related to ethnicity but it was rather used as a synonym for "Slav" and "Christian", ignoring the fact that the Macedonian Slavic population voted in a referendum to join theBulgarian Exarchate in the 19th century and demanded church service inBulgarian.[8]
He accepted that theMacedonians are Slavs, descendants of the Slavic migration to theBalkans.[9] Ristovski was a Macedonian nationalist. In a letter to the Balkan Insider, Ristovski and other intellectuals argued thatPrespa agreement did not show "respect for international law, human rights and democratic principles".[10]
